3D gesture recognition using passive RFID tags

Abstract

This paper investigates the application of passive UHF Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags for recognizing gestures in three dimensions. We experimentally assess the possibility to differentiate among predefined motions with a tag or object.We propose a novel method estimating and tracking the tag orientation in 3D based solely on the physical characteristic of the tag reply, using multiple reader antennas distributed around the interrogation zone. The results demonstrate a good potential, as even with simple data processing differentiation of simple gestures is possible. Our investigation therefore shows that the orientation information is available, and can be extracted using suitable data and signal processing techniques.